EDITORIAL: NHL players, owners reach deal in nick of time

After 16 hours of marathon talks and on the 113th day of a management lockout, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and union head Donald Fehr announced a tentative agreement to end the lockout which has eliminated two-thirds of the season.

The deal comes just in time as hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pro hockey fans are losing interest in the sport.

Bettman didn't disclose details of the pact, but Sunday said "the basic framework of the deal has been agreed upon."

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The lockout led to cancellation of 480 games. During Bettman's 10 years as commissioner, three labor disputes have eliminated 2,178 regular season games.

The deal must be ratified by the 30 team owners and 740 players.

Players conceded early in the talks, which began in June, that they would accept a smaller percentage of revenue that goes toward salaries and benefits and the talks were about how much less was acceptable.

At best, there will be 48 to 50 regular season games played in 2013, depending upon when the tentative pact is ratified. Still, the lockout likely will wipe out $1 billion in revenue for what should have been the 2012-13 season.

In Canadian cities such as Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, hockey is a big deal. The same can be said for American cities such as Detroit, Boston, Chicago and New York -- part of the original NHL teams before expansion. The same is not true for expansion teams such as Nashville, San Jose, Phoenix, Colorado, Tampa Bay and Carolina where many are no longer fans of the generally exciting, fast and punchy sport.

If the lockout wiped out the rest of this season, it's a high probability, it could have killed the league. That would have been tragic to many besides Detroit's Red Wing fans.

Marc Ganis, president of a Chicago-based sports consulting firm, said players and management "didn't hear a hue and cry from the fans, especially in the United States, when hockey wasn't played."

Well, both sides better start listening to the fans because there's a lot of apathy toward the NHL, unlike the NFL and even major league baseball.

The NHL's revenue of $3.3 billion last season lagged well behind the NFL's $9 billion, Major League Baseball's $7.5 billion and the NBA's $5 billion.

The tentative 10-year NHL contract will lower the hockey players' share of revenue from 57 percent to 50 percent with owners getting the other 50 percent.

Let's hope everyone focuses on what's happening on the ice again or the sport founded in 1917 won't last another decade.